Placecom Elections and the Treasure Hunt

Here is what the typical day goes by in the life of a typical MBA grad student.

We have a Quantitative Methods subject test at 3pm.

Next we have the elections for the Placement Committee Representative(Placecom Rep), which I won by a speech and presentation that was made on the spot.

Next we had a Treasure Hunt where we had to team up with our friends and seniors and gather a set of clues and find a treasure. The winner got a cash prize of 300 bucks.

Trip to Besant Nagar beach

Finding it extremely hard to get the time to blog. Down with cold and even then I had the courage to go to the beach. Had a gala time at the beach with my friends at Besant Nagar Beach. This was the first time I went inside into the water. We formed a human circle and that is what prevented us from being pushed away by the sea waves. All in all a really enjoyable day.

The first seminar @IFMR

It’s a general perception that time flies but here it feels like time has stagnated. Our days are so much action packed that days feel like weeks and weeks feel like months. Its just a week since we are here and already I have been witnessing the global links of IFMR development centres. Almost everyday we witness someone from some other country over here for research activities having dinner with us at cafeteria. We had a Dr Ananth Seshadri, Chair Professor, Dept of Economics, University of Wisconsin - Madison, giving us a seminar on whether Americans are saving "Optimally" for retirement.

In his work, he examined the degree to which US households are optimally preparing for retirement by constructing a stochastic life cycle model that captured the key features of a household’s consumption decisions. The model incorporated many behavioral features shown by prior work to affect consumption, including precautionary savings and buffer stock behavior, government, end-of life uncertainty and medical shocks, and a stylized, time-varying progressive income tax. Households in the model formed realistic expectations about earnings; about social security benefits, which depend on lifetime earnings; and about pension benefits, which depend on earnings in the final year of work. Assessing the adequacy or optimality of wealth accumulation is difficult since it requires some standard against which to measure observed behavior. So, he incorporated detailed data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) on family structure and age of retirement (treating both as exogenous and known from the beginning of working life) in calculating optimal life cycle consumption profiles. As a conclusion we found strikingly little evidence that American households have under saved. We also found it striking how much of the variation in observed wealth accumulation can be explained by the life cycle model.

Few of the key arguments were that I found interesting were that the rich usually save a lot because they fear they will live longer and consequently face more medical expenses whereas the lower economic sections of the society save less because they think they have the US Social Security to fall back on. The crux of the seminar could be summed up as 84% of the households in USA meet their optimal wealth targets not because they explicity opt to but due to the fact that they have enough government measures in place like social security etc.

The next seminar is on 27th July by Dr. Vish Krishnan, Sheryl and Harvey White Endowed Chair, University of California, San Diego's Rady School of Management. The seminar is on Investments in R&D, Information Technology, and Firm Performance. Although the seminar looks pretty interesting, I am not sure if I would be able to attend it since it would clash with my classes.

Day 1 @ IFMR

We had the batch inauguration of PGDM Batch10 at IFMR at the Bhagirathi Hall. The eminent persons present were Mr N Vaghul, Ex Chairman ICICI Bank, and Dr Nachiket Mor, President, Sustainable Finance Division of ICICI and the front-runner in the list of persons sought after to replace K V Kamath as the head of ICICI. In addition D Balasubramanium, Dean, IFMR and Bobby Srinivasan, President, IFMR, were also present to grace the occasion.
I must say Dr Nachiket Mor is an extraordinary speaker who is able to put across relevant things concerning the current generation in a pretty forceful way. Considering his age, I would consider myself blessed enough if I am able to maintain even a fraction of his enthusiasm and forceful persona. And then there was Mr Vaghul who was not prepared to give a speech but ended up giving the longest talk that I had ever come across. The discourse which lasted for more than an hour came straight out of his wisdom and his years of experience, in which he focused on the importance of integrity and being transparent which are the primary reasons for keeping India in shackles, and stopping us from achieving double digit GDP growth rates.

I always had a notion that it is pretty hard to get to hear the wisdom of corporate honchos, live, first hand, which is a fact if you are in the lower echelons of the industry. I had experienced this in the software industry where any person above the rank of VP does not even care to meet the developers. But then this is the day I was waiting for, my chance to be recognized, to be noticed. In the coming days, I would realize that the number of big shots with whom I get to interact, both from the industry and academia, would be pretty overwhelming.

Next we proceeded to the Narmada Hall in an adjacent complex just above the cafeteria. We would be addressed by key resource persons from IT department, Library etc. Another first-time experience for me – the ownership of a laptop. It is a DELL Latitude E5400. Although I am not happy with the configuration, it is pretty decent for the use of business grads. It is a 2.0 GHz Core 2 Duo machine with 2 GB of RAM, although the 160 GB hard drive leaves a lot to be desired, needless to say I would be filled up within a few days. Also the wider screen makes it more suitable for movie viewing which I am least interested in, as I watch more of documentaries and TV series ;)

The next good piece of news came from the librarian who said that the IFMR library called the H T Parekh Library is the largest in south India not in terms of space but in terms of the number of books it houses. Founded in the early 70s, it is also the only library in South Asia to be a World Bank repository i.e World Bank is bound by contract to send a copy of all their publications to the IFMR library. This single factor makes it irresistible to research scholars from IIM Bangalore, ISB Hyderabad, Loyola and other colleges around who flock to the library for its resources. In addition, the full text searchable databases of journals from EBSCO etc and financial data from corporate databases like Prowess and Capital Line make sure that the library spends at least 1 crore rupees annually(yes you got it right a 1 with 7 zeroes, even I was shocked!). A first hand reality check of the library convinced my skepticism. It reminded me of the old OUAT library, the largest one in Bhubaneswar which used to cater to an entire university of agriculture, veterinary, engineering and science colleges. It was also nice to know that we could issue 10 books at a time.

After getting our course material we had some more socializing between our batch-mates, had dinner and went back to the hostel. End of Day 1 at IFMR.

Enter the south

I board the train destined for Chennai on 10th night, sad to have left a lot of things at home, many including my bike, guitar and my most precious music collection, cursing my fate as to why I kept delaying my packing till the last minute, only to get trumped by the power failure, leading to a hard time packing all my stuff using my mobile’s flash light and a torch. Was glad that my brother brought a nice dinner of naan(Indian baked bread) and egg bhurji for me, something which I will cherish as the best dinner I will have for a few months. I was fortunate enough that some mysterious miraculous power always delays trains bound to and from Kolkata, whenever I am to board the train. I reached the station just in time only to see the train delayed by almost half an hour.

Day2 of journey and I reach the outskirts of Chennai to find the hot arid winds blowing in my face. Pretty quick to depression and fluctuation of moods that I am subject to, I went through a quick self analysis and a sense of guilt and remorse. Is this what I had wasted half a year of my work ex and hours of studying for? To join a college that is below my expectations.
Reached Chennai only to be fooled by the brokers and thugs aka Chennai auto-rickshaw drivers. It was only after boarding the auto did I realize that the person I had bargained so hard with was in fact a broker who swindled away 50 bucks in the process. After reaching the men’s hostel that the college had entered into contract with, I clearly saw that the ground reality differed a lot from whatever abysmal expectations that we had.

I befriended a few friends who had travelled in the same train. Later in the evening as we decided to go to the college, we decided local trains were the best way due to our proximity to the station. Measured my weight and was pretty pleased to find that I still weighed over 70 kilos despite the fact that I was at an all time low on health and starved after the long the long train journey.

Local train experience was a first for me. We made our tickets for our college IFMR which is in Nungambakkam and proceeded to board the train. Later it turned out that we were heading in the wrong direction. By the time realization dawned upon us, we were already pretty close to IIT, Madras at the Guindy station. Lucky again that we didn’t have a Ticket Examiner in the train to check our tickets, we stepped down from the train and started again but in the reverse direction.

On reaching the college, we met a few seniors who were familiar from their orkut profiles, and then decided to eat before the cafeteria stopped serving dinner for the night. The food at IFMR was the best thing that came across to me in Chennai, pure unlimited north Indian food, which I ate to a heartful.

After dinner we were to have a short ice-breaker session with the seniors but since we were late enough for the night, seniors allowed us to leave for the day back to the Mambalam hostel.

Hunt for 6 pack and the future of doping

As a kid, I always used to dream of becoming like my childhood idols and erstwhile WWF superstars like Sid Justice, Ultimate Warrior, Mr Perfect, Hulk Hogan etc. One thing I was always crazy about was their height and their flexing biceps. I managed to achieve the height, well almost(I am a six footer), but never quite managed to have that well defined body. So a well built muscle mass still remains an elusive dream for me. Besides, I have a few very good friends into serious gymming. After I saw some peculiar changes in guys when I was in my college I was forced to do some research on what exactly is the reason behind it.

Anabolic steroids was a rage among teens in those days and still continues to remain thanks to the every publicised 6 pack abs(SRK in Om Shanti Om) and 8 pack(Amir Khan in the movie Ghajani) although people are becoming more and more aware of the serious long term side effects of these substances . I had done some home-work at that time on steriods and the other substances like erythropoietien which is basically a glycoprotein hormone that functions as a cytokine for erythrocyte precursors in bone marrow. To put it in simple words, it temporarily increases the capacity of the body to intake and utilise more oxygen. These reasons led to its history of usage as a blood doping agent in endurance sports such as cycling, rowing, distance running, cross country skiing, biathlon, triathlons etc. However the thirst for success and the accompanying fame and money led the atheletes to forget all the side effects like hypertension due to effects on kidney, depression resulting from body's dependence on those substances, and heart attack caused by inducing proliferation of smooth muscle fibers in all muscles including the heart.


Even after all this substance abuse, the bodies of atheletes would have reached their biological barriers in every other sport by 2020, leaving no other option to break records. Or will it ?

Recent advances in science and medicine are poised to take doping to a new level altogether. Enter the world of Genetic Doping.



Genetic doping very cleverly uses a protein called Myostatin that acts as an inhibitor to the growth of muscle tissue. If Myostatin would not be present, our muscles would keep on growing even if we stop excersising our bodies. It is used for curing patients with conditions like muscle atrophy. If there could be a simple way of administering this to atheletes, their muscular tissue would keep on growing at a phenomenal rate for their entire life. And the bad part is it is already being done somewhere by somebody. However the long term side effects like forever growing muscles would make this such of doping an improbality for almost everyone. Here comes scientific research to the rescue again. Now, myostatin can be administered as tablets causing short term changes rather than injections causing permanent lifelong change in the body.

To make matters worse for testers, its virtually impossible to accurately test the person for this kind of genetic doping. Genetic testing is not possible by the ubiquitous urine testing. Blood samples would have to be taken to test the DNA through very expensive testing procedures. Dope testing is a profession where there will always be constant competition between the dopers and testers who always keep trying to outsmart each other.

The ethical question is - Are we ready to make life altering changes to ourselves just for the sake of breaking a few records ?

McLaren Mercedes Formula 1 car

Few days back on 26th June, I got a chance to see a Formula1 car firsthand. Formula1 is still to set foot in India. Its for sometime that the top bosses of F1 have been contemplating a street race in India, most probably in Rajpath, New Delhi. However, the fan following of Formula1 is still prevalent only among the classes. So, in an attempt to take the interest for F1 down to the masses, Vodafone, the official sponsor of McLaren Mercedes Formula1 team, had put up the MP4-24 car on display in Pal Heights, Bhubaneswar. So, I and a friend Pramit, went there to check out the car first hand and managed to catch quite an eyeful.

Here are the pics for all of you F1 enthusiasts.

The end of a musical era

Michael Jackson is no more among us. On 25th June 2009, Michael Jackson, one of the biggest pop icons in modern history, passed away at the age of 50. Despite my inclinations towards hard rock and heavy metal, it was the music of pop stars like MJ that I grew upto listening during my schooldays. I still remember Bad, my first English cassette(I got from one of my friends), it was wayback in 1997 when I was in standard 7th in school. Seasoned to the Bollywood song and dance sequences, the first impression I had of Bad was like wow. This was followed by Ricky Martin's Cup of Life a few months later in the 1998 Fifa World Cup season and I was instantly hooked up both to football and Pop music. I knew, a welcome cultural onslaught on me had started.

Although Jackson’s music career hit its peak in the 80’s, his influence on music, and especially music videos, has persisted throughout. The Y2K era saw the advent of audio and video CDs and I still do remmeber my friends begging for and willing to tradeoff anything in return for MJ's CDs with songs like Bad, Heal the World, Thriller etc. I also remember the day when I almost cried after watching the Earth Song. Later I was hooked on to the guitar solos in Beat It(by Eddie Van Halen) and Black or White(by Slash of Guns n Roses) as well as MJ's amazing dance moves which he brought on stage and in his videos. His songs like Heal The World, Earth Song, Black or White, Beat It etc were really thoughtful and built on social issues.

As a kid I had no idea that MJ was a Black American, neither did I know anything about the racial divide in the USA. Infact, Michael Jackson was the man who forced MTV to reconsider its decision to not air Black music on its channel, after phenomenal public demand for Billie Jean forced MTV to put it on air in the 70s. Later, Black or White hit the nail bang on the target. In todays world where we see religious/communal hatred and terrorism and insensitivity all over, its all the more vital for us to find our solace in music and make the world a better place for you and for me.

Michael, hope you moonwalk your way to heaven. You will live on forever in our hearts.

RIP MJ

Heal the world video

Earth Song video

Inauguration Blog :)

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Another blog starts yet again. I get the time to continue this for a while. This is supposed to be the most active blog after my earlier blog http://dreamzonfire.blogspot.com/ which was most active after my first time blog http://rajivmohapatra.blogspot.com/

Technically speaking this is my blog version 2.0 ;

Will be writing almost anything occuring to my mind every now n then;

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